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Walton Court, Portrack c1970

This is a typical view of the area in Portrack that was built in the mid 1960s, on what was a large chicken farm between Campbell Street and Walton Street. Walton Court along with Campbell Court were built to house elderly couples and middle aged single people who had lived in the terraced houses of Old Portrack.

Note that the heating was supplied by coal fires, with smoke drifting northwards from the chimneys. Completely unacceptable today. The TV aerials are also a vestige of the past. The older longer wave VHF and newer (BBC2 only) UHF aerials can be discerned. They were commonly referred to as 405 and 625 line channels.

This represents all that was negative in this type of development. Dour, characterless buildings and landscape for housing those in the lower echelons of society. My mother, in her seventies, was allocated a 9th floor council flat in Billingham. It was depressing just to visit it. To live in it was unimaginable but it was better than the tenements of Glasgow I suppose. Now, I am in my seventies I realise that the council house I lived in on the Newham Grange estate was really rather nice. I have fond memories of those days even though the standard of living was low. This image of Walton Court is disturbing because it emphasises that nothing seems to have been learned from the past in the field of public housing.

Roy, my grandma lived in Campbell Court, admittedly on the bottom floor (there were two flats either side of the central well). It was nice and cosy inside, quite okay for two adults. The main short coming, by today’s standards was the absence of a lift. But this was not too bad, giving that they were only two story buildings. Real attempts have been made more recently to make the estate look more appealing.

As far as I recollect, the flats did not come into use until around 1964. My grandma did not move in until I was in my second year at University

Mr Buchanan. Whereabouts in Glasgow did you live? A tenement is a building containing flats, it is not a synonym for slum, they were not all in bad condition as I presume you are thinking of the Gorbals before it was demolished. My grandmother had a cosy two rooms in a lovely area where the trams lulled you to sleep. My cousin lives in a tenement flat where her living room is the size of the whole of the ground floor of our 3 bed house, as is her kitchen. She has 4 double bedrooms and a hall the size of a badminton court, I would have a tenement flat in Glasgow over a flat in a modern tower block anytime.